ably copied or composed; and he was able, for example,
in July, 1836, to send the Society a detailed and dated account of his
entry into Spain in January, and his intercourse with the Gypsies of
Badajoz. It is also possible that the letters lent to him by the Society
were far more numerous than those returned by him. He missed little that
could have been turned to account, unless it was the suggestion that if
he knew the country his safest way from Seville to Madrid was to go afoot
in the dress of beggar or Gypsy, and the remark that in Tangier one of
his principal associates was a black slave, whose country was only three
days journey from Timbuctoo. {163c} He had already in 1835 planned to
write "a small volume" on what he was about to see and hear in Spain, and
it must have been from notes or full journals kept with this view that he
drew for "The Zincali" and still more for "The Bible in Spain." He wrote
his journals and letters very much as Cobbett his "Rural Rides," straight
after days in the saddle. Except when he was presenting a matter of pure
business he was not much troubled by the fact that he was addressing his
employers, the Bible Society. He did not always begin "Bible" with a
capital B, an error corrected by Mr. Darlow, his editor. He prefixed
"Revd. and dear sir," and thought little more about them unless to add
such a phrase as: "A fact which I hope I may be permitted to mention with
gladness and with decent triumph in the Lord." He did not, however,
scorn to make a favourable misrepresentation of his success, as for
example in the interview with Mendizabal, which was reduced probably to
the level of the facts in its book form. The Society were not always
pleased with his frankness and confidence, and the Secretary complained
of things which were inconvenient to be read aloud in a pious assembly,
less concerned with sinners than with repentance, and not easily
convinced by the improbable. He sent them, for example, after a specimen
Gypsy translation of the Gospel of St. Luke and of the Lord's Prayer,
"sixteen specimens of the horrid curses in use amongst the Spanish
Gypsies," with translations into English. These do not re-appear either
in "The Bible in Spain" or in the edition of Borrow's letters to the
Society. He spared them, apparently, the story of Benedict Moll and many
another good thing that was meant for mankind.

I should be inclined to think that a very great part of "The Bible in